


Here Her Heart Knows Calm

by honeymink



Category: Deadwood
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-08
Updated: 2012-01-08
Packaged: 2017-10-29 05:31:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/316335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeymink/pseuds/honeymink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For all true grits, she would not be there when it was over at high noon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Here Her Heart Knows Calm

_And speaking of politics, where we're going,  
there are only two parties: the quick and the dead._  
~ John Devlin, Dakota ~

 

Once a story had a miserable beginning, no auspicious interlude may foreclose its hapless ending.

Trixie always suspected as much. But when she met the widow, she learnt it was true for the wealthy as much as for the poor, and for women in particular.

Still one couldn't reproach her with a lack of trying to change things. Ten days and nights Trixie sat at the widow's bedside, tenderly encouraging Alma by whispering her name, appealing to her strength and cooling her sweaty forehead with wet cloths until Al summoned her back to the Gem.

"Now is not the fucking time to show you're the whore with a heart of fucking gold!" he reminded her, bruising her cunt.

But she didn't crack immediately under his tightening grip; the undertaking had proven to show enough promise. And for now, Trixie believed, the widow's sobriety was all that mattered.

"What's it to you?" the good doctor had asked. An enquiry she answered with nothing but a counter-question and a caustic smile.

No need to share intimacies about that desperate drunken kept woman she had for a mother. No need to ponder over affections and caresses that were strictly reserved for the mendacious bastard who, in all likelihood, was her father.

The widow would be sober, stay sober, take care of the child. The child had to be taken care of. The child was what's most important.

But the more frantic one's wishes were, the less likely it was for them to meet up with reality. Especially when they were dependent on other people. And were there any that were not?

Trixie always knew that and swore to remember it. But hope, even the faintest trace of it, is hard to muzzle.

Where the laudanum no longer clouded Alma Garret's judgment, her naïvité got in the way. Blithe and optimistic in her words and actions, the widow was ready to reconnoiter the rim and disappoint the whore.

And while for a split second Trixie entertained the idea of a better life, guilt and shame immediately mingled with a spiteful anger over the offer itself.

"Stupid rich cunt, just wants to pass the buck," she muttered to herself as she stormed down the stairs of the Grand Central and past Farnum's bootlicking civilities.

Later, her arm full of opium, she hoped for everyone's sake that Seth Bullock's cock would be fucking worth it.

***

It seemed like in this place people washed their hands only to remove the remaining taint of their morals.

Alma knew she should be disgusted by this, and therefore by her own actions. However, she knew that to be duplicitous. Practically being sold to Brom by her father had been the first step in her degradation, the laudanum the next.

"This is just a dirty little village in the middle of nowhere. Nothing that happens here is really important," she dismissed the questioning stare Trixie was giving her from the other side of the room.

Since Alma had felt like a whore before, having sexual relations with a man who was as handsome as he was married was only another trifling move in the wrong direction. So far he saw to her needs regarding the claim and in bed his thrusts were raw and forceful. It made her blush to recall the pleasure, although it clearly had to end in view of yesterday's developments.

"Be that as it fucking may, I understand the transformation of your new lover to a bloody, broken mess, and the extraordinary complication of his wife and child having arrived on the scene have left you a bit daunted, Mrs. Garret."

Still refusing to sit down, Trixie watched Alma closely while she rolled a cigarette.

It made Alma uncomfortable and she felt herself stiffen as she took on a condescending air and answered, "With the greatest amazement, I always wonder or at least try to fathom how you manage to assemble your discourse with so much slander and concern at the same time, Trixie."

"Just comporting myself as the uneducated whore that I am," Trixie said, almost deferent. "I take it then that you will still be able to see to the child's needs?"

"I certainly will. Thank you, Trixie!" Alma replied, her gratitude honest as she walked over to the other woman and took her hand to confirm the sincerity of her promise.

It was one thing to be a whore, but another to be a bad person. She would endeavour to end the romance. There would be no leaving town with Mr. Bullock. The visit she had paid to his wife had already severely spoiled that plan.

Trixie, however, seemed appeased, although her hand was shaking nervously under Alma's.

"You know, sometimes I wish I would have worked that snatch of yours with my fingers back then. Would have spared you a whole lot of trouble with that cocksucker."

To Alma's surprise she found herself ignoring the crudity and smiling a little.

"Today, I certainly wish that too, Trixie."

***

They say the road to hell was paved with good intentions. Trixie knew that was the truth.

The marriage she urged Ellsworth into to spare the widow a child out of wedlock definitely didn't miss another target.

The night of the wedding she had stayed with the Jew, when Bullock pounded against the door, pissed and agitated. "What the hell are you doing here?" he had hissed through clenched teeth as she opened the door.

He had put more than the usual amount of hostility into his words, which had pleased her immensely.

"Nothing, just looking at a tin star with a drunk pinned to it," she had answered calmly before shutting the door in his face.

But pride will lead to a fall.

The child didn't stick. However, the temporary relapse into the laudanum didn't either. Trixie was proud. She made sure to let Alma feel it.

A delicate and deceiving balance was established until it was destroyed by Hearst's Pinkertons, proving that men's schemes and politics could be ignored but not avoided.

Now the widow was a widow twice. And a whore was going to die.

In her cold and blind rage Trixie hadn't been a better defender of her beloved's interests than Bullock in his seething furore.

"Too fucking stupid to aim for his fucking head!"

Hands down, Al spelled out what everybody in the Gem was thinking. Nothing to palliate here. Trixie certainly knew that for herself.

"You loaded your fucking weapon backwards? First the fucking wadding, then the ball, and last the powder? Loopy fucking cunt!"

***

Sheltered in the re-achieved safety of her home, wrapped in the warmth of the covers, Alma felt Trixie's fervid cheek resting against her collarbone. Here her heart knew calm. She felt Trixie's did too. Finally it seemed she could be what Trixie needed. But it wasn't long until dawn and Alma feared the moment the other woman's hot tears would cool and dry on her pale skin.

"I gave Mr. Star a commensurate amount to get you established wherever you want. I knew you'd object," she finally said, her voice shaky.

"You sound like you're a widow trying to give away money and don't have too many takers."

Seemingly ashamed by her vulnerable state, Trixie couldn't let it go without a last sneering remark. Alma mustered a sad smile as she pressed her lips against Trixie's wet hair.

"And you sound like a whore protesting the pay is too high. Please don't."

 

 **~Fin~**


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